Avira has been “Nortonized”

[ScandinavianFish]

I recently tried Avira Free given results in ShadowRa's tests, and I found it very light in terms of feel and benchmark. I also read that the company protects user's privacy.

However, I noticed that only real-time protection is provided for free. Is that good enough for anti-ransomware, and the addon (I use Firefox) for web protection?

Next, does it show popup ads, and if so can they be disabled?

Third, what news have you heard about Nortonization? Will users' privacy stil be protected, and do you think the free version will still be continued?

Avira is similar to Malwarebytes, it does not protect users post-execution, and it has fallen short over the years, together with Bitdefender, and its nagging rivals that of Avast.

 

[Shadowra]

I recently tried Avira Free given results in ShadowRa's tests, and I found it very light in terms of feel and benchmark. I also read that the company protects user's privacy.

However, I noticed that only real-time protection is provided for free. Is that good enough for anti-ransomware, and the addon (I use Firefox) for web protection?

Next, does it show popup ads, and if so can they be disabled?

Third, what news have you heard about Nortonization? Will users' privacy stil be protected, and do you think the free version will still be continued?

Having compared Avira Free and Avira Pro, I didn't notice any big differences.
Avira uses APC a lot when it doesn't know (it stops the launch of the suspicious file, analyzes it and determines a result).

To have torpedoed it in all directions with home-made malware + my Origami, Avira always sounded in APC (Except one in HEUR/Agen because I used a known code)

 

[aboredman]

Actually, Free version is enough. Paid version does have the so-called "ransomware protection" and Web protection. However, I personally don't think Avira's ransomware protection technology works, and Avira heavily relies on APC to detect and block new threats (including ransomware), according to my testing. APC is available in the Free version. If APC fails to detect malware, your PC is very very very likely to be infected. Avira basically does not have off-line behavior blocker.


For Free version, no. But you will see in-product ads that cannot be disabled.


Nortonization here means the addition of Cryptomining feature, and it's nothing to do with the privacy protection.
Yes, freemium model will be kept.

What’s the meaning of "APC"?

I'm interested in this word.

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

What’s the meaning of "APC"?

I'm interested in this word.

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[amico81]

@aboredman

Avira Protection Cloud

Avira Protection Cloud included in Avira Free Antivirus. Download Avira Free Antivirus now!

www.avira.com

 

[SeriousHoax]

Saw someone on Reddit saying that a recent December update made his PC run Avira better than before.
I don't know if anything has changed recently. I have not tested the latest one myself yet.
Offline installer link without any bloatware:

https://install.avira-update.com/package/antivirus/win/en-us/avira_antivirus_en-us.exe

About Avira and APC, my experience tells me, it's very good against exe based samples but still lags behind in script based and fileless malware. Even their offline signatures isn't quite at detecting script malware.

 

[vonvon]

I currently use Avira, it seems to me that it continues to use its engine as well as the behavior blocker inherited from BullGuard (Sentry).

 

[Slerion]

Yep the Norton virus also infects many other companys , Like Surfshark / nord "Just one more feature for the checklist to showcase to customers"

 

[vonvon]

Hi, while playing around with Avira prime, I noticed that the latest update caused SecurityHealthSystray icon to disappear from the taskbar. Not really important, but annoying. SecurityHealthSystray icon comes back if I uninstall Avira!

 

[XLR8R]

A bit weird that BullGuard's sentry exists in Avira, but is not used in any other Gen products.

 

[Vitali Ortzi]

A bit weird that BullGuard's sentry exists in Avira, but is not used in any other Gen products.

It's a whole mess XD